Bill Frindall
William Howard Frindall
Frindall was educated at Reigate Grammar School and studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art before serving in National Service for six and a half years in
the RAF. Frindall took over the scoring for Test Match Special on 2nd June
1966, following the death of the previous scorer Arthur
Wrigley in October 1965, who had been the BBC scorer from
1934 up to the year of his death.
Frindall is an enthusiastic cricketer himself and his fast bowling prowess has been on display at cricket grounds around the country (especially in Charity matches) for many years.
His major works include
- "Wisden Book of Test Cricket"
- "Playfair Cricket Annual", which he has edited since 1986.
- "Wisden Book of Cricket Records"
- "Guinness Book of Cricket - Facts and Feats"
- "Cricket records" section of "Wisden" for several years.
He is also known for producing scoring charts for many of his tours with England. He modified the linear scoring system developed by Australian scorer Bill Ferguson into a version that is known as the Frindall system.
In 1998, Frindall was awarded the honorary Degree of Doctor of Technology by
Staffordshire University for his contribution to statistics. He was appointed
an
Frindall is known for staunchly defending his beliefs about his subject. When the ACS attempted to revise the status of many 19th century and pre-war matches, which would have produced statistics that are different from the conventional, Frindall was among those who objected to their "rewriting of history". As a result, some ACS statistics are different to those in Wisden, which is regarded as the standard. For example, the ACS has awarded Jack Hobbs 199 hundreds (as recorded on Cricinfo) while Wisden, the generally accepted standard, gives him his "traditional" total of 197.
More recently, when the ICC decided to award Test and LOI status to the matches played for the Tsunami benefit and the ICC Super Series between Australia and a Rest of the World team, Frindall, in common with many statisticians and historians, disputed the ruling. As a result, Playfair and other publications to which he supplies statistics will not classify those matches as official Tests or LOIs.
In June 2006 his autobiography - 'Bearders - My Life in Cricket' - was published by Orion.
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